The present invention and the invention disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. (28049/35288) are related.
The present invention relates to the collection of cookies and other information from a panel.
The Internet has proven to be an efficient and popular mechanism for the dissemination of information from web sites to clients. Web sites in many cases are operated by organizations, such as businesses, governmental agencies, educational institutions, and the like. Clients are often consumers who use computers usually located in their dwellings to access the content provided by web sites. Clients are also businesses, governmental agencies, educational institutions, and the like.
The operator of a web site has an interest in the number of clients that use its web site as well as the demographics of those clients. For example, such information is useful in giving an advertiser some assurance that its advertisement will reach enough clients of the type who are typically interested in the product or service offered by the advertiser to warrant placing the advertisement with the web site. Also, such information is instructive to the web site operator in creating web pages for a particular target audience.
In accordance with the present invention, cookies and access information can provide useful information about the usage of a web site by its clients. Cookies are typically downloaded from web sites to the clients that visit them. A web browser executing on a client""s computer sets aside a small amount of memory (usually 0 to 4 kilobytes) for each web site server visited by the client. Accordingly, when the client receives a cookie from a web site, the client""s web browser stores the cookie in the memory set aside for that web site. The contents of the memory, and the length of time it is maintained, are specified by the web site.
A cookie is used by web sites to distinguish web browsers/clients from one another. In other words, a cookie allows a web site to determine whether a client request is received from the same client that previously made some other request, or whether a client request has been received from a wholly different client than the client making the previous request. In short, cookies give web browser client applications uniqueness. This uniqueness is important to a web site""s ability to keep track of the state of each of many client requests. Therefore, cookies permit a web site to distinguish one client from another, to distinguish sessions of use by a single client, and to keep track of many other important aspects of the display of content on a client""s computer.
Cookies are added to the headers of the HTTP transfer protocol. Essentially, when a client makes a request of a web site, the web site may issue a storage directive in the header of its response to the client""s is request. Such a directive may look like the following:
Set-Cookie: CUSTOMER=WILE_E_COYOTE; expires=Wednesday, Nov. 9, 1999 23:12:40 GMT.
In the above example, xe2x80x9cCUSTOMER=WILE_E_COYOTExe2x80x9d is stored by the browser operating on the client""s computer until Nov. 9, 1999. However, a web site need not specify any expiration date for the cookie, in which case the cookie expires when the client""s browser is exited.
Whenever the client makes a subsequent request to the same web site, the client""s browser will include in the header of such a request the following string, from the date that the cookie is originally set until the cookie expires:
Cookie: CUSTOMER=WILE_E_COYOTE.
A web site can overwrite a cookie that it sets at a client""s computer. Also, a web site can store multiple cookies on a client""s computer. In this case, a client""s browser will place the following general statement in the request header when the client makes a request:
Cookie: NAME1=STRING1; NAME2=STRING2; . . .
The general syntax used by a server in setting a cookie is as follows:
Set-Cookie
name=value
[;EXPIRES=dateValue]
[;DOMAIN=domainName]
[;PATH=pathName]
[;SECURE]
The use of the EXPIRES clause in the above syntax is described above. The DOMAIN clause is optional and is used to specify a set of machines in a DOMAIN that should have access to the cookie content. If a web site does not specify a DOMAIN name for this clause, the DOMAIN clause defaults to the name of the web site that issued the Set-Cookie directive so that only this web site has access to the corresponding cookie. In other words, only a cookie, which matches the DOMAIN specified by a particular web site that set the cookie, will be sent by the client to that web site in the header of an HTTP request. Accordingly, this DOMAIN clause is the fundamental basis for the security of cookies because one web site has no access to the cookies of another web site.
The PATH clause is optional and is seldom used. The PATH clause forces a further limitation on when cookie information is sent from the client to the web site. Only requests that lie within the PATH of the specified DOMAIN contain the cookie in the request""s HTTP header.
The SECURE clause is also optional and, if set, insures that the cookie is transmitted over a SECURE socket session. If the SECURE clause is not set, it is assumed that the cookie data is accessible to any document or CGI program that meets the other DOMAIN and PATH matching properties.
Many web sites currently use cookies to track their clients"" visits to their servers and to distinguish requests from one client to another. This tracking is easily achieved, for example, by setting a unique cookie (such as a counted sequence or a date/time stamp) for each new client visiting a site. Repeat clients are not re-tagged within the expiration period of previously set cookies.
Accordingly, a web site can accumulate information regarding the clients who visit them. However, it is difficult for a web site to accumulate information about others who could have an interest in its content offerings but who, for one reason or another, do not access its server. It is also difficult for a web site to accumulate demographic information about the clients who visit them. Such demographic information is not available from the log files maintained by a web site. What is needed, therefore, is a statistically selected panel of clients that represents the entire population of those who have an interest in the types of content offered by a web site.
In assembling a panel, candidates for the panel are selected randomly by a market research company. Ideally, every candidate selected for the panel would agree to serve on the panel. However, candidates fail to participate for a variety of reasons. For example, candidates may refuse to accept any unsolicited contacts, or candidates may refuse to participate once they hear the reason for the panel, or candidates may refuse to answer any questions of a demographic nature, or candidates may refuse to load metering software fearing that such software may alter the operation of their computers, or candidates may agree to serve on the panel but never actually report data back to the market research company.
Accordingly, the cooperation rate of candidates is generally less than 100%. (The cooperation rate is defined as the number of people who actually report data divided by the number of people originally contacted for participation, multiplied by 100.) This cooperation rate is important because the randomness of the membership of the panel depends on the cooperation rate. That is, if the cooperation rate in assembling the panel is too low, the membership of the panel is less random, which introduces a bias into the data reported by the panel. Thus, the closer the cooperation rate is to 100%, the closer the panel membership approaches true randomness and the less bias is introduced into the reported data.
When the panel is to be a business panel, additional factors may lower the cooperation rate even more. For example, businesses are often reluctant to reveal company information outside the company, businesses frequently view data collecting software as a security risk, and the authorization procedures of businesses may discourage the installation of such software.
All of these factors make it difficult to assemble a panel which has a truly random membership. Therefore, there is a need for an arrangement which permits the creation of a panel having a high cooperation rate. The present invention is directed to such an arrangement.
In accordance with one aspect of the present invention, a system comprises panel members, web sites, and a central facility interconnected in a network. The central facility is arranged to collect cookie information and access information regarding usage of the web sites by the panel members.
In accordance with another aspect of the present invention, a method of collecting access information relating to access by panel members to a plurality of web sites comprises the following steps: a) accessing, by each of the panel members, a web page stored at a central facility, wherein the web page contains a URL for each of the web sites; b) in response to step a), transmitting, from each panel member either to each of the web sites corresponding to the URLs of the web page or to the central facility, any panel member cookies which the panel member has stored and which correspond to the URLs; c) accumulating at each of the web sites access information relating to the panel members; and, d) transmitting, from each of the web sites to the central facility, the accumulated access information.
In accordance with yet another aspect of the present invention, a system comprises panel members, web sites, and a central facility interconnected in a network. Each of the web sites stores a central facility sub-server. The central facility is arranged to initiate the transmission of panel member cookies from the panel members to the web sites, and each of the central facility sub-servers is arranged to detect client cookies contained in incoming messages, to compare the panel member cookies to the client cookies, and to transmit to the central facility access information corresponding to the panel member cookies that match the client cookies.
In accordance with still another aspect of the present invention, a system comprises panel members, web sites, and a central facility interconnected in a network. The central facility stores a central facility sub-server for each of the web sites, and the central facility is arranged to initiate the transmission of panel member cookies from the panel members to the central facility. Each of the web sites is arranged to download panel member cookies from the central facility, to compare the panel member cookies to client cookies corresponding to log entries, and to transmit to the central facility access information from the log entries that correspond to the client cookies which match the panel member cookies.
In accordance with a further aspect of the present invention, a computer readable storage medium has program code stored thereon which, when executed at a web site, performs the following tasks: a) receiving panel member cookies from panel members, wherein the web site, the panel members, and a central facility are interconnected by a network; b) detecting client cookies from clients connected ho to the network, wherein the clients include the panel members; c) comparing the panel member cookies to the client cookies; and, d) transmitting to the central facility access information corresponding to the client cookies that match the panel member cookies.
In accordance with a yet further aspect of the present invention, a computer readable storage medium has program code stored thereon which, when executed at a web site, performs the following tasks: a) receiving panel member cookies from a central facility, wherein the web site, panel members, and the central facility are interconnected by a network; b) detecting client cookies from clients connected to the network, wherein the clients include the panel members; c) comparing the panel member cookies to the client cookies; and, d) transmitting to the central facility access information corresponding to the client cookies that match the panel member cookies.